


one hand

by thearcherballet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Other, Sirius Black and James Potter Friendship, Sirius Black and Lily Evans Potter Friendship, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4507986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thearcherballet/pseuds/thearcherballet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius Black trusts people.</p><p>Biggest lie ever.</p><p>Sirius Black can literally count with just one hand the people he trusts: James, Remus, Peter, and Lily.</p><p>Even that list seemed questionable at best to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one hand

**Author's Note:**

> for my friend janna who harassed me into writing this

Sirius Black trusts people.

Biggest lie ever.

Sirius Black can literally count with just one hand the people he trusts: James, Remus, Peter, and Lily.

Even that list seemed questionable at best to him.

Any other people, he regarded carefully.

He can’t actually blame himself. After being raised in a cesspool of abuse, one sort of carries that mistrust around like an unwanted bonus to their personality.

Adults, especially at Hogwarts, never seemed to fully understand why he always wanted, no,  _needed_ , to be with one of the previously mentioned.  If it seemed annoying, it worked.

With James it was easy, for some reason. Growing up around Purebloods his entire life had given him some sort of sixth sense to know when there was one near him.  He’d seemed alright though, not like the always high and mighty Lucius, or even his own older cousins.

The excited glint in the other boy’s eyes had swayed him and it clicked. He’d had to grimace when he’d mentioned Slytherin with a sneer. His head had instinctively gone to ‘Oh, one of  _those_ ’. But as the boy with miraculously wrecked black hair started talking about being a  _Gryffindor_ and _where dwell those brave at heart_ , he wanted to be brave.  At least, brave enough to stand up to his parents, and family, and their friends. So Sirius clung to that and ran with it.

Turns out, Sirius was right when he’d thought that James was a different kind of Pureblood.  He was secretly kind, and the right sort of loud that could hide all his insecurities without Sirius having to try. But he didn’t understand Sirius, at least not fully.

Having to live with a hateful voice at the back of his head telling him he’ll never be worthy, of love, of friendship, of a sense of family, James could listen to that, but never actually understand what it did to him.

When Remus started disappearing once a month, he’d known something was wrong, but he pushed it inside, not to tell James, or worse, Remus himself, of what he suspected.  But James knew fast, and he’d told Peter.

(He barely trusted Peter but he made an effort because Remus and James had no trouble trusting him.)

So it wasn’t just him carrying hateful words at the back of his throat that he now knows are wrong but can’t help but let them fester inside.

He’d gone to Gryffindor to find bravery, but he’d also found a deeper sense of cowardice.  

In the dead of night, when his mates (or, his brothers as James insisted on calling them), were asleep, he’d go out and stroll around the castle, wondering if he’d ever actually fit in, sometimes shedding a few bitter tears clouded with the shelter of the dark.

He got skilled at hiding his emotions, like a True Gryffindor.

(Not that he’d had trouble before with that, he’d lied through his teeth all the time at his parents’.)

And one night, he wasn’t alone.

The boys knew he’d go walking around his new home, though they probably just thought he was planning to cause ruckus the next day. But it wasn’t one of the boys who found him out, hiding behind a tapestry in a secluded hallway that the professors didn’t frequent on their rounds.

It was Lily.

And she seemed just as lost as he did.

So, bonding over lost families, mourning everything they’d once known in an attempt to vanish unfavorable beliefs, they somehow became friends.

This was much to the chagrin of James, who continued to make a fool out of himself when Lily was concerned.

 _“I just want to be heard,”_  she’d whisper with slightly sitting next to him, darkness egging them on to spurt out everything they bottled up.

 _“I just want to fit in,”_  he’d say back at her.  

They just want to make  _someone_ proud, though the someone they were trying to grasp at would never care, would never actually take a second-look and decided that they were worth their time.

The moment Lily shares that she thinks she can’t trust Severus, Sirius scoffs. He could’ve told her that from the very first day.  Snape reeked of propaganda, and he’d know, he was once a part of it.

It was one thing to have the one person you’d trusted because they helped you realize you were much more than normal, than distrust every single person they’d come in contact with because they’d once made you feel superior before being knocked down a peg or two.

(Maybe more, his life was full of knockdowns.)

From two very confused children they somehow became two very strong young adults, ready to take on the next person that would try to have them down against the floor in their false sense of superiority.

It was Sirius who later consoled Lily, silent with their already simple yet convoluted connection, inviting her to the kitchens with an arm around her shaking shoulders.

(Who else would bond over emotional manipulation of those closest to them.)

In the blink of an eye, Lily did the same to him, after that cursed incident.

(Sirius carried a grudge, and chose the wrong, very wrong,  _he knows it was wrong_ , way to prove a point.)

She listened, understood his upside-down logic, because if anyone understood it would be her.

(She was always too kind, a victim of circumstantial sorrow.)

He trusted the Marauders to understand him, to understand his plan, but they judged him.  

He thought friends were there to help him out, even if it was dirty work.  It was the hateful voice that made the decision, the one he’d tried to squish out, one that told him friends aren’t real, there are only connections, you stupid boy.

But Lily knew.

 _“It’s fucked up, but I get it,”_  she says around a handful of chocolate, shrugging and letting it be.

And she was the one that managed to get through James’ head.

Try being in a victim’s shoe for once and stop trying to make yourself into the perfect goddamned hero. Sirius needs you.

He needs James. And he needs Lily, and Remus, and even fucking Peter.

He doesn’t need the hateful voice that is the sole reminder of where he comes from, and he definitely doesn’t need Snape.

They’re young, and reckless, and just the tiniest bit out of their minds to join a resistance group straight out of school.

James and Lily get married.

James and Lily have a baby boy.

Lily asks him to be his Godfather, much to James’ dismay because he wanted to ask him first.

 _“Not my fault you were too busy sleeping when Sirius was holding my hair as I vomited and I asked, James,”_  she sighed amused at her husband’s, his brother’s, antics.

Sirius Black trusts people.

Biggest lie ever.

Sirius Black can no longer count with just one hand the people he trusts.

He only trusts James, Lily, and little baby Harry, too young to know that one can’t trust any more than what one hand has.

He doesn’t know whether Remus was the spy.

He doesn’t know whether Peter is the rat.

So he gives up his status as Secret-Keeper as the final test.

Sirius Black no longer trusts people.

He should’ve trusted Remus more, because now he didn’t have five people he trusted, or three.

He had no one  _left_ to trust.


End file.
